


Hello from the Other Side

by wynnebat



Series: Author's Favorites [6]
Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Adoption, EWE, Families of Choice, Future Fic, Getting Together, Kid Fic, M/M, Magically Powerful Harry Potter, Master of Death Harry Potter, Minister for Magic Harry Potter, Pining, Post-Canon, References to Depression, Reunions, Sirius Black Lives, not dark!Harry but not strictly light
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-07-10
Updated: 2018-07-15
Packaged: 2019-06-08 10:15:26
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 14,777
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15241182
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/wynnebat/pseuds/wynnebat
Summary: Minister Potter has ninety-nine hundred problems. He never would've expected Sirius Black to suddenly become one of them, but when every person lost to the veil is suddenly returned, Harry deals with public opinion, rehabilitation, and long-forgotten feelings as he works to provide a future for a new segment of magical society.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> I’d like to say I made an attempt to not use this title as soon as I thought of it, but it would be a lie. Good advice has been eschewed in favor of amusement.
> 
> Warning for references to depression and discussion of suicidal ideation.

Fifteen years after the end of the war, Harry-just-Harry is a ghost of the past, and Harry’s more or less accepted it. He spent a year relaxing on a beach in Spain in between traveling the world (and this year, it was the third year after the war, because fuck if Harry was going to let the ministry do what they did best and fuck up reconstruction) and it was great, but he itched to do something with himself. To his surprise, becoming an Auror didn’t call to him. He doesn’t want to step in only when things have gone wrong. He wants to build, not tear down, and so he takes a look at the ministry and thinks, _yeah, alright._

Hermione’s overjoyed. Ron raises an eyebrow and shrugs. They don’t talk about it, but that break was good for their friendship, and so is the fact that they’re not in the same field. Ron’s accomplishments don’t vie for attention from behind Harry’s these days. Which is good considering that Harry becomes one of the youngest ministers of magic that wizarding Britain has ever had.

Considering neither Ron nor Hermione have done bad for themselves either, as Head Auror and Chief of the Wizengamot respectively, some say they’ve got a stranglehold on the ministry.

In his worse moments, Harry wonders if he’s becoming Dumbledore.

In his worst moments, he wonders if he’s becoming Riddle.

The rest of the time, he just works. Thanks to the wars and Fudge, magical Britain’s laughably behind the rest of the world in terms of school curriculum, innovation, and just plain politics. Harry can’t drum up a genius of Snape’s caliber (and fifteen years after the war, Harry has put the man’s life behind him enough to drunkenly bemoan the fact that they no longer have his brain), but he can start with rebuilding the wizarding university that was destroyed during the first war and never rebuilt.

The day this story begins, at six in the morning, Harry’s just thinking about whether another cup of coffee will cause his personal healer to appear in the room on the back of a lightening bolt. His top assistant has been talking nonstop for the past five minutes about everything he’s missed in the nine hours he’s been away from the office. Harry’s listening with one ear.

“—and Counselor Brookbird is filing murder charges against Counselor Malfoy for something Malfoy’s father did twenty-five years ago, the Hit Wizards filed an official brief saying that the previous administration specifically ordered them to destroy the files we requested from them two weeks ago, Senior Undersecretary Parkinson has not returned—”

That one has Harry’s attention because dammit, he’s half-convinced Pansy’s doing it to spite him at this point. They can’t vote on the new university’s budget without her and she knows it. “ _Still_?”

“Sir, magical children rarely arrive on schedule.” Belinda says with a reproachful look. “As I was saying, you’re missing two cabinet members, and there’s been a dimensional breach in the Department of Mysteries.”

Harry sighs. A dimensional breach would’ve alarmed him during his first year in office, but these days he just says, “Tell Finch to get his Unspeakables back in line or I’ll send Hermione after their budget.”

“Noted.”

“Do you think they’ll mind if I go help deal with the breach instead?” he asks without any legitimate hope.

“You may help by being the first to evacuate if they call up a level four or above emergency,” Belinda replies dryly.

“I can’t believe I hired you,” Harry moans. “I need someone who’s going to enable my bad ideas, not try to curtail them.”

“Of course, Minister. Would you like me to get you a front seat for that breach? Just out of reach of the possible flames, but still close enough to get sucked in if it becomes one of _those_ breaches.”

“I feel maligned,” Harry sighs. “Is Ron already in? I need to go over the new training plans he submitted.”

Belinda taps her inkless quill against her parchment a few times. Their office system is still rudimentary, but Harry can’t imagine how his predecessors worked differently. Hermione hadn’t slept for two weeks until she found a spell to act as a word searcher in her documents, and that hadn’t been the first thing they’d borrowed from the muggles. The debates in the Wizengamot about tradition and intellectual property had been brutal.

“His badge has him in his office,” she says.

And that’s the start of Harry’s workday, during which he tries to cram in a week’s worth of tasks into hours. Delegation still sometimes comes hard for him—he likes being active, feeling like he has a hand in everything—but it’s necessary. He puts the problems he can’t deal with personally to the back of his mind. And so he doesn’t spare a thought to the dimensional breach. If it becomes an issue, he’ll either die when it explodes the planet or his security detail will get him out of its range in time.

When the usually placid Belinda approaches him with a deep frown around 3 o’clock, Harry assumes there’s been an issue with the press. Rita Skeeter retired some years back with her pockets probably full of blackmail money, but there’s no shortage of people ready to skewer him in writing. They’re not always wrong, though they do tend to knock Harry from the pedestal they themselves dragged him onto.

“Sir, there’s been an issue in the DoM,” she says. “The dimensional breach has been dealt with, but it knocked loose the magics inside the Veil of Death.”

Harry’s mind spins a little. The Veil of Death prior to his own experience with it—experience that still hurts some after all this time, but doesn’t overwhelm him—had been an execution tool. “Do have a few hundred bodies on our hands?” It’ll be a problem to spin the ministry’s past misdeeds in a light that won’t shine on their current administration, and it’ll be a problem to identify and thoughtful bury all the bodies, but those won’t be Harry’s problems. Harry has enough on his plate.

“No, we have a few hundred _people_ ,” Belinda replies. “Apparently, the Veil of _Death_ was something of a misnomer.”

“That’s completely—”

And that’s when Harry realizes what her words mean for him personally.

Well, there go Harry’s plans for the day.

Hermione _has_ been telling him to get out of the office more.

 

*

 

A few hours later finds Harry in the post-war wing of St. Mungo’s, a place he’d hoped would never need to be used again, however temporarily. It was added to the building in the weeks after Voldemort’s demise. Not only had fighters on both side of the final battle direly needed medical attention, but during the months after the war, everyone who hadn’t been able to seek medical help during the war needed somewhere to go. People who’d been injured but hadn’t trusted the healers to not report them to the ministry or purebloods who didn’t want to be seen as weak and lose their standing in society. The wing had been open for a year, gradually becoming less used, until it was only used for healer training or when a patient needed more privacy than the main hospital could give. Harry had visited it twice after near-misses with assassination.

Now he’s back, watching the newcomers through a one-way wall with his closest advisers at his side. The rest of his cabinet has popped in and out, but two have stayed the entire time. The only two who Harry trusts to figure out the situation with him. Because frankly, this is a clusterfuck.

Hermione’s hair always looks bigger when she’s stressed. She returns from a consultation with one of the Chief Healer looking like she’s only just barely too professional to storm in there and get answers from people herself.

“Four hundred thirty-eight people,” she says, then casts a privacy ward. Harry’s other remaining cabinet members glare, but she ignores them with the ease of long practice. “A hundred and two who speak Old English or another no longer used dialect. I can almost guarantee that we don’t have records for half of the total because of pure ineptitude, the reasoning that we wouldn’t need criminal records of someone who lived _five-hundred years ago_ , or the inferno that was made of the records department when our side needed to hide the blood status and personal information of everyone in Britain. If we give some of them a retrial, we’ll need to give the rest of them one, and what are we supposed to do with them in the meantime? And the risk of eradicated diseases returning, my god, I hope we got them all contained fast enough.”

“But they _are_ from our world?” Harry asks. “The dimensional breach was what got them out of the Veil.”

“Spoke to Finch myself,” Ron offers. “Creepy dude. But he confirmed that as much as he can tell, they’re ours alright. Our problem.”

“The more recent—oh, I don’t even know what to call them, death row-ers? executionees? former inmates?—”

“—after-afterlifers?”

“Anyway, they’ve been able to match their memories with our records detail for detail.”

Harry glances back at the only person on the other side who he personally cares about. Sirius is just right there in a small curtained-off section of the ward. Harry had gotten a few glimpses of him and had laughed when the man tried to sneak out of the hospital. “He looks like Sirius. Talks like him, walks like him. But it’s been years—too many years. He died when I was fifteen. That’s over half my life ago.”

Hermione and Ron share a look, but it’s Ron who says, “I’m not saying it’s likely, but there’s still the possibility that this is a trap.”

“How so?”

“Opposition from the other party, for one, or from your many enemies. It isn’t completely impossible to think they’d send someone to hit your weak points.”

Harry considers it, but he can’t quite believe it. “Everyone already knows all my weak points. I don’t think there’s a part of my life that hasn’t been in the Prophet at one point or another. Hell, people know what I eat for breakfast. I’m not some big enigma. All the policies I’m trying to get pushed through are through the Wizengamot, which is open to reporters and the public, not some shady backroom deals.”

“Just be careful, alright?” Hermione says. “Even if this isn’t a trap… you remember how Sirius used to be. I don’t think this is going to help in the mental stability department. Everyone he remembers is now seventeen years older. Remus and his other friends are dead. You are, well, you’re a grown man.”

“Wouldn’t it help? The fact that I don’t need anything from him, that I can help him instead?” Harry remembers being thirteen, fourteen, fifteen, and needing so much from Sirius. He’d been a boy with dreams of home and family and happiness, but he’d been too young to truly realize that Sirius couldn’t provide any of it. Haunted by Azkaban, shadowed by the ministry, Sirius couldn’t give him much, and it had hurt Sirius as much as it had hurt Harry.

“I don’t know,” Hermione says. She bites her lip. “Listen to the healers. Don’t push him.”

With that, Hermione takes out her inkless quill and taps thrice, then writes a quick message. The mediwitch on the other side of the glass looks up and nods at them. She slips into Sirius’ partition and a minute later, she’s escorting him to a private room. Sirius looks around the room, his gray eyes passing Harry, who stands invisible behind the wall. Harry takes one look back at Ron and Hermione, then follows his godfather to the private room.

Harry strides through the door like the most influential main in Britain he is, but no matter what, the sight of Sirius Black in the flesh still makes him feel like a fifteen year old boy. For months after Sirius’ death, Harry’s dreams were full of the Veil returning Sirius to him or Harry being able to keep Sirius from falling. He would only realize the dreams were nightmares when he awoke, tears in his eyes, to a world that Sirius would never walk again. Wasn’t supposed to walk again, anyway.

“Harry,” Sirius breathes like a man lost finally finding a map. His hands lift, but he twitches, the motion stopping.

Harry doesn’t allow the strangeness of the situation to keep him from the hug he’s waited years to get. He takes three long steps and wraps his arms around Sirius tightly, tucking his chin down onto Sirius’ shoulder. “Hey, Sirius.”

Sirius’ breathing sounds choked, but he continues hugging Harry tightly, and Harry does nothing to change their situations. He’ll be here for as long as Sirius needs him. The fifteen year old boy in him doesn’t want to let go anyway—maybe even the thirty-two year old man he is now, too. Sirius is an old wound reopened in a way that Harry thinks could heal properly now, leaving behind a smaller scar than there used to be. Eventually, Sirius loosens his grip and Harry steps out of his embrace, not going far.

“Did they tell you anything?” Harry asks, trying to be gentle, but this isn’t a topic he can afford to be gentle on. He won’t hide the world from Sirius, good or bad. Sirius may be lost in time and in shock, but he hasn’t lost all his faculties.

Sirius gives a small shake of his head, his gaze not leaving Harry for even a moment. He can’t seem to look away, taking in Harry’s form, lingering on every detail. “Only that it’s been seventeen years.”

“Only that, huh.”

A hollow, nearly hysteric laugh. “All minor changes, really. Good Merlin, Harry, you’ve grown.”

“Thirty-two now,” Harry says with a crooked smile. After his words, he does some rapid mental math to make sure that Sirius is still older than him. Only by four years, but it’s enough. Harry can’t imagine the added strangeness of accidentally becoming older than his godfather. He’d already had a minor breakdown back when at twenty-one he’d realized he was a month older than his father had ever been able to be.

Godfather—just the word feels odd to Harry. Harry is used to it being in reference to himself. He has four godkids with another on the way.

“Thirty-two,” Sirius repeats. “You...” He trails off, then seems to decide he may as well say it. “You don’t look as much like James as you used to.”

Thank fuck. Harry doesn’t know what he would’ve done had Sirius called him James. Cried in a restroom, maybe. Instead, he blurts out, “Is it the wrinkles?”

Sirius huffs, amusement flicking in his eyes for the first time, though most of it fades quickly. “It’s the lack of glasses, I think. You have a few centimeters in height on him, too.”

“Mum’s side of the family,” Harry says. There’s a reason Aunt Petunia had loomed so tall in his childhood memories. But that’s not the reason they’re here, and neither of them have been good at ripping the bandage off slowly.

“Tell me what happened after I fell,” Sirius says, the look in his eyes somber and serious. He doesn’t say death—to Sirius, seventeen years ago had only been a few hours ago—but it’s there on the tip of Harry’s tongue. “I don’t care about what the healers say I should or shouldn’t know. I can’t just stand around here, not knowing what happened to you without me.”

“I survived,” Harry says, swallowing. The look in Sirius’ eyes is hard to bear. He hasn’t needed a paternal figure in years, hasn’t needed that protective look that he just knows means Sirius would give his life for his in an instant. Harry doesn’t know what to do with it.

“Always knew you would,” Sirius tells him. “C’mon. Tell me how you kicked his ass.”

Something uncurls in Harry’s chest. Sirius doesn’t blame him for his death. Sirius just cares about him, just like that. Like this isn’t the weirdest situation Harry’s found himself in, in years. It’s enough to let the words flow from Harry’s lips. Slowly at first as he tells Sirius about the immediate aftermath of the ministry battle. It’s a bit of a blur from the post-adrenaline crash and stress and anger, but the key parts will always stick out in his memory. Dumbledore telling him the prophecy. That horrible sinking feeling in his chest as he finally realized why his parents were targeted. Sixth year and Dumbledore’s death. The seventh year that never was. Remus, Tonks, Teddy. Voldemort.

“I never did properly graduate Hogwarts,” Harry admits with a huff. He doesn’t know how much time has passed, just that he’d like a glass of water and that he and Sirius have migrated to sit shoulder to shoulder on the hospital bed, their backs to the wall and the pillow thrown to the side. “I sat for my NEWTs, but that was more on Hermione’s insistence than anything else.”

“Smart girl,” Sirius says.

Harry raises an eyebrow.

“I’m not about to be godfather to a layabout,” Sirius says with a dramatic shake of his head. But just in case, he adds, “I’m proud of you, Harry. Whatever you do, I’ll always be proud of you.”

“You sure?” Harry asks, raising his eyebrows.

“Sure as the stone of Gringotts.”

Harry continues on. The fifteen years since the war are easier than the two before, filled with exponentially less suffering. Harry fulfilled his debts, saw the world, and let his compass point him back to the place that has always loved him too much or too little. But there isn’t anywhere else that he wants to call home. He tells Sirius about his early years where he figured out his footing, his time as Kingsley’s shadow, his work on the campaign of a candidate who dropped out at the last minute. Harry had been too young, too political even for a politician. He’d won anyway. Harry likes to think that at least forty percent of his victory was due to his actions after the war rather than during it.

Sirius doesn’t deny Harry’s words, but there’s disbelief in his voice as he says, “You became the Minister of Magic? Of all the jobs, that one’s not one I had pegged for you.”

Harry shrugs. “At fifteen, I wouldn’t have. Or even at seventeen, eighteen when we were just getting out of the post-war phase. Kingsley stepped in as interim minister and did a hell of a fine job with it. But Kingsley wasn’t a career politician. We were lucky to get five years of him, then he stepped down and we got a charismatic idiot into office.” Yeldridge’s name still makes Harry want to gnash his teeth. “By the time the next election came around, I was eligible for office and the best person to throw in their hat at the last minute.”

“And you wanted it, too,” Sirius prods, a flicker of understanding.

“No one twisted my arm,” Harry agrees. He doesn’t know if it’s the war or the post-war years that got him to lean into his Slytherin side. These days, he can say with certainty that the Sorting Hat hadn’t been wrong, but he wouldn’t give up Gryffindor for the world. He needs both, wants them in this post-Voldemort world. “I don’t live in Grimmauld Place.”

“Good,” Sirius tells him. “I wouldn’t have wanted that for you.”

“It’s not bad after the renovations,” Harry argues, though not very hard. That house will never bring up good memories for Sirius. “I signed the place over to Ron and Hermione when they were looking for a place to live.”

Sirius looks delighted. “Mum would’ve loved that.”

“We managed to get her portrait off, but we let her know exactly who’d be living in her precious home,” Harry agrees. “Look, I wasn’t— What I meant was, after the healers look you over, come live with me. For as long or as little as you want. My home is always open to you.”

“You don’t have a partner that might object?”

“The ministry is my partner,” Harry replies. “Keeps me up all hours of the night.” He searches his brain for a good way to put every signal his heart is giving him into words. Political speeches, he can do, but personal ones? There’s a reason he’s single in his thirties. “It’s been a long time for me and I never got to know you as well as I wanted to, but maybe we could change that now. If you’d like.”

He’s pulled into another hug before he even finishes speaking.

“There’s nothing I want more,” Sirius says, his voice a little hoarse, as though it’s him who’s been talking for more than an hour.

Harry closes his eyes for a moment. Sirius doesn’t disappear in the darkness, his arms warm and solid around Harry. Even now, Harry can barely believe this isn’t a dream. He’s too old for all of this and it’s insane, but already Harry’s considering what he can cross out on his schedule in the next few weeks to work less than his usual workaholic hours. He and Sirius hadn’t been able to be there for each other all those years ago, but they have a second chance now. Harry isn’t going to waste it.

 

*

 

Two days later, Sirius is released into Harry’s care under the condition that he must return to the hospital for additional healing and monitoring of his potions regimen. It’s hard to wrap his head around the fact that for Sirius, Azkaban had only been a handful of years ago, while for Harry Sirius had escaped twenty years ago.

“Freedom,” Sirius crows as Harry side-alongs him from St. Mungo’s apparition point to the apparition point a few meters from his home, one that only he and now Sirius are keyed to.

“Almost, anyway,” Harry says, smiling at Sirius’ expression. “The outstanding warrant for you was repealed after you died, but I’m still working on getting a full pardon for you. It’s not a matter of anyone disagreeing with it, more that the Wizengamot isn’t at full capacity and already overworked without the Veil’s help. Still, it should be done next week at the latest. It’s only a technicality as anyone who knows anything already knows you’re innocent, so you can take a stroll down Diagon Alley whenever you want.”

Sirius shakes his head, not with disagreement but wonderment. “I haven’t been able to do that since I was twenty-one. I can’t imagine how different it looks.”

Harry tactfully doesn’t comment on how Sirius’ twenty-one was forty years ago. Sirius isn’t even forty himself. This time displacement thing is insane. “Same old, really. Except George’s shop. You’ll love it.” As they approach, Harry points out the two Aurors on duty. They’re patrolling the area, too far away to properly say hello, but Sirius will see them around often enough. “Essa Parkinson and Michael Forley, they’re on duty today.”

“Parkinson? That’s a dark family.”

“Her older sister did try to give me up to Voldemort,” Harry says, just to properly appreciate his godfather’s flabbergasted expression. At fifteen, he’d been too angry and sullen to really prod at people, but he’s grown more sure of himself. Harry has overcome too many problems to get pouty about the new ones that inevitably arise.

“And you let her guard your house? How the hell did you survive until your thirties?” Sirius hesitates over Harry’s age, but it’s barely a blip.

“Luck and hardheadedness,” Harry muses. “I personally vetted my protection units. I trust all of them. Her older sister did what she did because the final battle was taking place at Hogwarts and her sister was a first year holding her hand and depending on her to save her life. Pansy didn’t give a shit about me, but she’d do anything for her kid sister. Essa’s gone through the standard intention-based testing and veritaserum questioning. She doesn’t mean any harm to me and she has a hell of a spell repertoire for people who do mean to harm me.” After a glance at Sirius’ tense expression, Harry adds, “Still don’t trust her?”

“I trust _you_ ,” Sirius compromises. He runs a hand through his hair. It’s shaggy, long, unkempt. _Not good for photo ops,_ Ginny’s voice says in his head, a memory of her going after his hair with a purple potions bottle during the campaign. “You talk about the war like it’s over and done with and I know that’s the way it is. But to me, three days ago I rushed to the ministry to save you from Voldemort’s trap. We fought in the middle of the ministry. Fudge was still Minister of Magic. It’s just going to be an adjustment.”

“You can take as long as you need. We have the time now.”

Harry gives Sirius a tour of the house. It’s bigger than it needs to be for a single man. Harry bought it years ago with the vague idea of maybe one day using the three empty bedrooms someday, but they’ve only been occupied by guests staying over. He pays for a house elf to clean and cook, so there’s no embarrassing messes for Sirius to see. Maybe it might be better if there were; Ron and Hermione sometimes remark that it’s too perfect of a house, though Harry is of the belief that having two kids in short succession has skewed their idea of what a clean house looks like.

Sirius lingers at the mantelpiece. The fireplace is properly large enough for three people to step through side by side—a security measure in case of an attack—and Harry had decorated the top with framed photographs. They’re not arranged in any particular way. His parents’ wedding photo, copied from Hagrid’s photo album, sits next to last year’s vacation photo, which showcases the Weasley family getting exponentially larger every time Harry turns around.

“I keep missing out on the best years,” Sirius says, so quietly that Harry barely hears him.

Harry steps closer to him, their shoulders brushing together. Sirius’ words send a pang of sadness through him. His godfather gave up most of his twenties and his early thirties to Azkaban, then spent three years unable to appreciate freedom while on the run from the ministry. He lived in a cave in an animagus form, then moved from place to place, then Grimmauld Place. And now there’s just seventeen years gone at the blink of an eye.

“If I’d known, I wouldn’t have rested until I got you out of there,” Harry promises. He means Azkaban and the Veil, Grimmauld Place and the cave. He was too young to save Sirius then and now at thirty two, Sirius tugs at every saving people instinct Harry thought he’d buried under policy and politics. “But you’re here now. You’re not that old—”

Sirius huffs at him.

“You’re not, seriously, I’d know. You’re what, thirty-six? With a wizard’s lifespan, you have a century to do whatever the hell you want. You could kick back and spend the Black fortune—I still have most of it—on strippers and a personal island in the Caribbean. Or you could set up here and volunteer at the Lupin Foundation or join the Aurors or go yell at Dumbledore’s portrait every day for two weeks.”

“Personal experience?”

“It was very therapeutic,” Harry admits with no shame. “So you missed out on my childhood and young adulthood. That’s fine, I was a moody little shit anyway. You’re here now. That’s something to celebrate, not regret. I’m done mourning you, Sirius, you don’t need to mourn yourself.” It’s selfish, but Harry will take Sirius here with him now, safe and secure, than a few more years with Sirius during the war, where he might’ve died in a different, more permanent way.

“You’re a lot more talkative now, you know that?” Sirius asks.

“It’s the job.”

“The one you chose,” Sirius argues, wry with leftover disbelief. “I’ll try. I promise you, I’ll try. I’ll go to St. Mungo’s and drink their potions and get some sunlight, but you have to promise me that if all of this gets too much for you, you’ll tell me to leave. I’m not going to fuck up your life by being in it. I wasn’t in a good place mentally when I left and I’m not in a better one now, much as I try to hide it. It’s going to be hard.”

“I promise,” Harry says. It’s a lie, but it’s a lie well-told.

If Sirius thinks Harry’s going to give him up after a bit of hardship, the Veil must’ve knocked some screws loose.


	2. Chapter 2

Sirius chooses the largest of the spare bedrooms. It’s situated across the hall from the master bedroom. The first night, Harry spends an hour lying in bed awake, trying to hear any sounds from the other room. Instead of mulling over work issues as per usual, he keeps imagining the miracle that brought Sirius to him just undoing in the middle of the night, leaving nothing at all of his godfather. He wonders if Sirius will have nightmares. He wonders if he’s being an idiot. (It’s a given.)

When he falls asleep, his slumber is deep and restful, his dreams quiet. In the morning, Sirius hears him wake and eats breakfast with him despite it being horrifically early for someone who isn’t obligated to get up before dawn. Harry is used to it, but Sirius doesn’t have to be. When he tells him so, Sirius just tells him not to fall asleep on anyone at work.

It’s nice, the company. Comfort with the new arrangement creeps up and takes over, leaving Harry at a loss to how easy it is to live with Sirius. Not that Sirius is an easy person. He’d been right in saying that it would be hard. Some days Harry comes home to him in a black mood, other times shaken and grieving. Sometimes Sirius doesn’t come home and Harry only sees him the next morning, looking lost and lonely. Harry feels like Molly Weasley with all the things he refuses to say because Sirius was an adult who can make his own choices, but he always hugs Sirius extra hard those mornings.

But there is a light to Sirius that shines through any darkness, dim as it is during the blackest of Sirius’ moods. Sirius’ humor is infectious when it’s there. He regales Harry with the most ridiculous stories from the past and from his time at St. Mungo’s, where he spends time with all the rest of the people the Veil gave back. Spit out, Sirius always corrects, because he finds it more amusing that way.

“More accurate, too,” he says. “That’s what it felt like—the darkness just spitting me out.”

Harry will never breathe a word of it, but the Veil of Death isn’t as much of a misnomer as everyone now assumes. He doesn’t know where Sirius and the others had spent all those years. They weren’t dead, not if magic, even powerful magic, could return their souls and bodies to the living world. But there’s something cold that clings to them all for the first few days, something that seeps out and tugs at a part of Harry that he’d long ago decided was best left unexplored. In his left pocket, untouched but always with him even when he tries to get rid of it, the elder wand echoes that same energy.

Harry feels a kinship the magics of those who’d come from the Veil. That’s what he calls it in his head in the light of day. In the dark of night, he allows himself to acknowledge that it isn’t so pretty of a word as kinship. It’s darker, possessive, strong in a way Harry rarely allows himself to feel. Death has a claim to those souls; everything Death claims, so does Harry. They’re their own people, these criminals and innocents from all walks of life, but Harry will guide them as he does the people he’s already taken responsibility for.

Sirius seems to feel a similar responsibility—or perhaps it is actually kinship on Sirius’ end, nothing so serious as responsibility. He visits St. Mungo’s dutifully for healing of his mind and body, but he stays longer than he needs for only that. Harry doesn’t begrudge him it. He doesn’t think he’ll ever be able to begrudge Sirius anything again; Sirius could go on the murder spree the newspapers always said he’d committed and Harry would only sigh and call up the obliviation team that’s more loyal to him than to the ministry. He doesn’t think Sirius actually realizes how much Harry loves him, how much he would happily do to make sure Sirius stays alive and well. At fifteen, he’d been pushed around by fate, powerless and angry. At thirty-two, Harry has more people he wants to protect and less scruples while he’s at it.

Harry starts leaving work at six instead of ten and hires three new people for his department to pick up the slack. He makes his peace with delegating tasks that don’t need his presence and stops spending nights at the office. There’s always the occasional crisis, but unless it’s a state of national emergency, Harry deals with it from the comfort of his home or wherever else he finds himself.

Or rather, finds Sirius.

Tuesday evenings, Harry joins him in St. Mungo’s, the late summer sun warming the large courtyard that has been set aside for the remaining people from the Veil. Sirius is sitting in the shade of a tree, his cloak tossed onto the ground beneath him and the open collar of his undershirt fluttering in the light wind.

Harry’s amused with himself over the fact that he still finds Sirius handsome. These days, he’s sworn off tortured souls, but it looks like Sirius will always appeal to him. He’d felt guilty about it as a teenager. Now, Harry just kicks back next to Sirius and lets the attraction fade in favor of companionship. He won’t let anything to strain his relationship with Sirius, especially not some pesky thoughts.

“How is the ye olde contingent?” Harry asks, turning his attention to the others strolling the courtyard.

“Geoffrey has finally agreed to teach me swordsmanship,” Sirius says with a delighted laugh. “I don’t think I can get up from this spot without falling over. You wouldn’t think simple repetitive training movements could take so much energy.”

 _I’d rather you didn’t, on account of the mental image of you shirtless and with a sword is going to chip away at my already not particularly shiny moral fiber,_ Harry thinks, then looks forward to the sight. “Embracing the Gryffindor stereotype?”

“I know, not too impressive to someone who goes around slaying giant snakes with Gryffindor’s sword.”

“Touche,” Harry replies with an amused huff. “That was only once. It was Neville who killed Nagini.”

“I missed out on the most interesting shit,” Sirius sighs, though not with any sadness. There’s too much tired satisfaction in his gaze for depression to slither in. “He’s training a group of ten of us. Two from the 1700s, three brothers born in the 1890s, one woman who says her history is between her and the Wizengamot—”

“Not even your charms have worked?” Harry asks. He can’t imagine it.

Sirius shakes his head dramatically. “I despair for my waning good looks.” Before Harry can royally blunder anything he says in reply to that one, he adds, “The kid has joined us, too.” He inclines his head toward a corner of the courtyard, where a young girl seems to be hiding behind a rosebush.

There are a few dozen teenagers in the group who’d left the Veil, sentenced to death for everything from murder to theft of a lady’s jewels. But the youngest is a young girl of five or six years old. It is her with whom the staff of St. Mungo’s has been having a difficult time. The girl doesn’t speak, shies away from conversation and human contact, and won’t confirm even her name, although judging by her reactions to language, the healers are reasonably sure she understands English. Harry’s seen the reports. The healers are convinced she had gone through trauma—although of course she had, to end up in the Veil of Death—but aside from what their scans can tell them, they know nothing.

“Yeah?” Harry watches her for a moment until she looks up to glare at him. Cute. Harry smiles at her and turns to Sirius. “Is she able to lift a sword?”

“The wooden ones we’re using, yes, but I’m doubtful about a real sword. Still, I don’t think we’re going to graduate to real weapons very quickly, judging by how unimpressed Geoffrey seems to be by our progress.” Sirius lifts a hand to wave at a red-bearded man who emerges from the building and approaches one of the healers. “That’s him over there. He used to be the most highly regarded swordsmasters in Britain before one of his competitors framed him for the murder of a student. Someone should revise _Hogwarts: A History_ to get the facts right.”

“Has he already had his trial?”

“Last week. I came along for moral support. Hermione seemed torn between exhaustion and the urge to abscond with him for a few hours to ask a few hundred questions about the time period. He was apparently one of her heroes when she was a firstie studying wizarding history for the first time.”

“She probably will still show up to satisfy her curiosity,” Harry warns, amused. “Of if not her, a reporter surely will.”

“I’ll pass that on.” They sit for a long while, just enjoying the day, before Sirius speaks again. A complicated sort of frown on his lips as he says, “I got an owl from Narcissa. She wants to meet with me. Says she doesn’t have enough family left to continue being estranged from a fellow Black.”

“Is that what you want?” Harry asks. He keeps his tone carefully neutral, not wanting to influence Sirius too much only because he can agree with a similar statement: Sirius didn’t have enough friends left to turn down a sincere offer.

“I don’t know. After Andy, she was my favorite cousin as a kid, but she stopped associating with me once I was sorted into Gryffindor. Not that I was any better to be honest. I barely know her.”

“No harm in trying,” Harry says. Neutrality is probably overrated anyway. “She’s not bad. A little cold, but I’ve never had a problem with her.”

“Are you saying that just because she saved your life a decade ago?”

Harry shrugs. “She reconnected with Andy and Teddy after the war. I’ve had lunch with her a few times while we were both visiting. I also dated her son Draco for a while. He named me as his son Scorpius’ godfather later.”

Sirius splutters at that. “You hated him at Hogwarts. I remember that one pretty clearly.”

“He cleans up well,” Harry says with a grin.

“I would’ve thought the Weasley girl would be more your type.”

“I dated Ginny, too,” Harry defends until he realizes what it sounds like. “Not that I’m a manwhore or something.”

“Speaking from experience, being a manwhore is an excellent way to spend your time.” Sirius gives Harry an evaluating look. There’s not a hint of passion in there, just concern. “When was your last relationship, anyway?”

“You sound like Molly.” Harry’s heard more than he’s ever needed to hear about the grandchildren he’s denying her. And god-grandchildren to Sirius, probably. “I’m happy with my life.” At Sirius’ pointed look, Harry admits, “It’s been about five years now.” He decides to count the few months he spent with Helga a relationship even though it had mostly been stress release and elaborate political oneupmanship.

Sirius seems to be weighing a few possible responses to that. Finally, he just says, “Are you truly happy?”

Harry takes a few moments to think on it, but he just says, “I am. You don’t have to worry about me, not about that at least.”

He immediately changes the topic, which likely doesn’t do much to convince Sirius of his sincerity, but Sirius allows it. Harry hadn’t lied; he is happy, more than he has been in a long while. He’s happy with Sirius’ companionship and his presence in Harry’s home. It no longer feels empty, even when Sirius isn’t home. Happiness is an odd, fleeting concept in a life as busy as Harry’s, but he can’t deny that he hasn’t been lacking for it.

 

*

 

It takes another week for Sirius to coordinate his visit with Narcissa. Somehow along the way, Harry gets coordinated into being there as well. Harry can’t say why, considering his praise of Narcissa had been more lukewarm than anything—he doesn’t know her all that well despite knowing her son well—but he agrees to attend with good grace. He finds himself agreeing with most things Sirius wants to do as long as they don’t interfere with work or seem too dangerous. At first it had been that Harry didn’t want Sirius to be mobbed by people too curious about the people who’d left the Veil and Harry’s Auror guards are a fantastic deterrent for that, but as they got to know each other and the strangeness began to fade, Harry began to genuinely enjoy their outings. If Sirius wants to visit a dragon preserve, Harry is game. If Sirius wants to test out the Hogwarts motto, Harry steers him toward a pub instead.

They don’t have anything resembling a godfather-godson relationship outside of maybe Sirius getting on Harry’s case about overworking himself or not being open to some attractive witch or wizard sweeping him off his feet. Harry’s usual answer is a jibe about Sirius himself needing to get laid if he’s so concerned about Harry’s love life. He never jokes that their two issues could be solved together, but Sirius never takes it there, either. It’s a shame, but that’s life. Harry assumes Sirius doesn’t register Harry in that way. It’s not the end of the world or anything.

Sirius buys a new set of robes for meeting Narcissa now that the paperwork has gone through to revert the Black Gringotts accounts back to his control. It’s half of Harry’s personal wealth gone, but he can already live a comfortable life off the smallest of the Potter vaults, so it’s no sacrifice. Sirius thanks him anyway. Harry is familiar enough with the Malfoy manor, but he still waits for a house-elf to steer them to the sitting room facing the grounds behind the Malfoy manor. Narcissa and Draco stand to greet them, while Scorpius jumps out of his seat in a run. Lucius isn’t present. Whether it’s because of business or because Narcissa asked him to not interfere, Harry is grateful.

“Harry!” Scorpius yells.

“Brat,” Harry acknowledges, crouching down so that Scorpius can run into his arms instead of his knees. He still can’t get over the thought of his pointy ex having such a cute kid. It’s all a credit to Astoria, obviously. “What is that in your hair?”

As Scorpius expands on the virtues of the newest line of kid’s products George is selling, Harry watches Narcissa embrace Sirius. Draco doesn’t go that far, but he’s civil. Sirius is too, cautiously friendly as he gets back into the swing of small talk and gentle charm directed Narcissa’s way. Harry hopes Narcissa will be good for Sirius. She’s not particularly friendly to strangers, but she’s proved how much she loves her family, and no matter how long they’ve been estranged, Sirius is family.

Sirius is family to Harry, too, but it’s the kind of family that has Harry reminding himself Sirius isn’t interested in reviving some old Black traditions. It strikes Harry that Narcissa and Sirius should look the same age, but they don’t, not at all. Narcissa is beautiful at any age, but time has made its impact on her. Sirius instead looks just as he had when Harry was fifteen.

Eventually, Narcissa smiles and takes Sirius’ arm, turning him toward one of the entrances leading to the grounds. To Harry, she gently chides, “You’ve been keeping my cousin all to yourself.”

“He’s my godfather,” Harry replies, and he means for the words to come out with more humor than they do. He clears his throat when Sirius glances back at him. “We had some catching up to do.”

He, Draco, and Scorpius trail after the cousins as the duo heads for the grand area that Narcissa claims is a garden but Harry just calls a maze. He reserves the idea of gardens for Aunt Petunia’s little roses and shrubs, not the ten foot high sprawling structures that have endless loops and pathways. It reminds Harry a bit of the maze in his fourth year, but not enough to unnerve him. Flowers bloom year-round in a kaleidoscope of colors and Harry hasn’t seen a single sphinx or blast-ended skwet, although he has run into a pair of escaped abraxans in the past. It’s a particularly good place for a snog, which he and Draco took advantage of often during parties a decade ago.

“If there’s one man I thought I’d never see again,” Draco muses after they loose track of Sirius and Narcissa and Scorpius runs off again.

“I reserve that one for Voldemort, personally. I almost expected him to pop out of the Veil out of pure spite.”

Draco mock-shudders. They’ve been at peace for too long for Voldemort to be more than a horrible memory; even Harry’s scar hasn’t ached in fifteen years. “Granger says you’ve managed to get around the permanent sticking charm between your ass and your office. If I’d known all you needed was a hot godfather to get you out more, I’d have appointed one for you.”

“Fuck off,” Harry replies, lazily gesturing at Draco then spinning around to make sure Scorpius hadn’t been in the vicinity. “I know you don’t have feelings other than smugness and Malfoy pride, but I’ve missed him.”

“You didn’t even know him.”

“I do now,” Harry replies. If Sirius vanishes on him now, Harry actually would miss him, miss Sirius himself instead of the concept of home and family that he’d missed before. “Did Hermione get to you?”

Draco gives her up easily, the Slytherin. “She’s concerned that you’re swapping one obsession for another.”

“Hermione has no room to talk.”

“No, she doesn’t,” Draco agrees with a shrug. “I don’t care either way, just so you know, but are you doing this out of some misplaced guilt? Da— parent issues? Pity?”

“It’s really not any of that,” Harry says. “We just get on well, that’s all. He... understands me.”

“Ah.” Draco’s brows furrow and he gives Harry a searching look. “Never mind. It’s _that_ kind of obsession.” An air of smugness enters his expression, tempered only by disbelief. “It’s been a while since I’ve seen it on you, that’s all.”

Pushing Draco into a row of vines that slither like snakes fails, so does Harry’s attempts to convince Draco that it’s not an obsession. It’s a perfectly stand-up bond between a godfather and a godson four years younger than him, that’s all. They cross paths with Sirius and Narcissa eventually, separating into different groupings as the conversation flows. Harry speaks with Narcissa about Teddy’s new girlfriend, explains who Sirius is to Scorpius—

“He’s my godfather, like Pansy and I are yours,” Harry says, even though it feels wrong even as he says it. Sirius never got the chance to help raise Harry like Scorpius’ own godparents and Harry doesn’t look up to him like his own godkids do. Harry knows Sirius too well to properly look up to him. Harry wouldn’t trade him for the world, but Sirius isn’t some perfect paternal figure. He’s made shitty decisions out of anger and prejudice and grief, vanished from Harry’s life for six times longer than Harry actually knew him, started gaining muscle mass from a proper diet and swordsmanship lessons.

“Does he take you to the zoo?”

Well, they had gone to a dragon preserve. “Sort of.”

“Okay,” Scorpius says, apparently deciding Sirius passes the good godparent test.

—and eventually, he reunites with Sirius in a quiet corner of the maze. There’s traces of laughter on his face, and he smiles at Harry as the Malfoys’ voices fade.

“I can’t believe you’re all but a Malfoy yourself now,” Sirius teases with a shake of his head. “Your younger self would have been horrified.”

“I’m in denial,” Harry quips. Draco, Astoria, and Scorpius had somehow wandered into his social circle (probably around the time Harry made the terrible decision of dating Draco and risked death by hair potion fumes) and never left. Astoria came later, catching Draco’s attention in a way that caused him to give up his usual ways nearly overnight. They’re a cute couple, if too Slytherin and smug.

He tells Sirius the story as they walk, starting out vague but accidentally going into the uncensored version because of how amused Sirius looks. Harry can’t get over how easily Sirius laughs now, the casual way that he’s started enjoying life despite the past still holding onto him. It catches Harry’s attention each time, holding it closer and closer. Harry tells himself he’s being a dutiful godson and laughs himself.

If this is duty, then duty is rejoicing in Sirius’ successes and standing with him through his failures. Duty is making sure Sirius know he can move out if he wants to and feeling relived when Sirius prefers to stay. Duty is the wizarding world in one hand and Sirius in the other and Harry not willing to let either one suffer a lack of attention. (Duty is falling asleep beside Sirius on the couch on the busiest of days and Sirius taking the quill out of his hand and staying there with him, solid and comforting against Harry’s side.) Duty is making sure Sirius doesn’t realize how much Harry would like for their lives to intertwine even more than they already have, a comfortable slide into a future where there’s no question of Sirius leaving.

Sex is half of the coin, the sex Harry isn’t having and the sex he’d like to have, but it’s not urgent.

It doesn’t feel urgent. Maybe because Harry isn’t a teenager anymore, maybe because Sirius’ presence is enough in any way he chooses to give it. Harry won’t push. He knows himself well, knows his impulse to barrel over problems by being too obstinate to back down, but that’ll do him no good. Sirius isn’t a fragile figurine, but he’s still healing and Harry is his lifeline in many ways.

And Harry would prefer to have Sirius the way things are instead of pushing him away with feelings Sirius doesn’t need.

 

*

 

Sirius brings them to a beach his family used to own, running as Padfoot along the shore, security detail stationed at a respectful distance across the beach. The healers had been insistent about him not using his animagus form as an escape and Harry has only seen Sirius shift a handful of times. It causes a strange sort of double vision in him, causing him to feel as though he’s fifteen again and Sirius is only dropping him off at the train station. He can almost hear Draco’s voice taunting him with something, the actual dialogue lost to time.

Harry shrugs off his robes and runs with him, eventually collapsing onto the sand when Sirius runs at him instead of next to him. Sirius ignores his chuckles and cries about dog breath, licking the side of Harry’s head and wagging his tail against Harry’s knees. He settles against Harry’s side, staying as Padfoot for a long while before Harry opens his eyes and sees Sirius again. It’s windy enough for Harry to stay close to him, sharing body heat as they stare out at the ocean and the fading sun.

“I remember being inside the Veil,” Sirius says, staring out into the distance. It’s all he says until he glances at Harry and huffs at the carefully composed expression that had appeared at his words. “You knew that already, of course.”

“I did,” Harry agrees. “Some of the others mentioned it during their trials. I assume they all remember it to some extent, though the healers tell me some have blocked out the memories.” After a moment, he adds, “I’m not spying on you. Your mind-healing files are private, as they should be. I’m just...”

“Being the Minister of Magic?” Sirius offers. “You work too hard.”

“Not as much as I used to. I’m nosy, too.” Maybe that’s not the right word for the desperation Harry felt toward the beginning to find out what had happened to Sirius, but it’s close enough. That desperation has faded in the passing months, leaving only a tendency to want to know everything about Sirius, not desperate or nagging but steady and sure.

“You should’ve seen the way Lily would get all up in my business,” Sirius huffs, though he sounds a little wistful. “But you don’t need to save me, Harry. I’m fine.”

Of course Sirius is fine. He’s lived through Azkaban and grief and even death. It’s all on Harry, the way, “I don’t always know when to stop. You can tell me to back off if you feel suffocated. I’ll do it.”

“For a while?”

Harry feels his ears grow hot and hopes Sirius doesn’t notice.

But Sirius doesn’t look angry, and the sunset casts a glow to something soft in his expression. “I appreciate it, even if I shouldn’t, considering it’s me who’s supposed to be looking out for you instead.

“We can look after each other.”

Sirius nods, a small movement compared to the weight to the air between them. He takes Harry up on the offer, saying, “It was peaceful in the Veil. I don’t remember much—time passed differently there, or maybe I just wasn’t able to register it—but I remember how quiet it was. After the chaos of war and the hell that was Azkaban, it was warm and quiet and... It wasn’t a bad place, Harry.”

Harry swallows. “Do you miss it?”

“Not so much that I’d go back,” Sirius promises.

Thank fuck, because Harry wouldn’t let him. Sirius can do whatever he wants with his life; if he wants to move to France and never see Harry again, Harry will deal. Painfully, but he will deal like an adult instead of a tantrum-throwing kid. But Sirius isn’t allowed to give up on life itself. That’s where Harry draws the line.

“I think of it less and less now, but sometimes when it gets to be too much, it has a crazy sort of appeal.”

“If you tell me when you’re feeling that way, I can get you out of wherever we are in two seconds flat. I’m Minister of Magic and Man Who Conquered. People expect me to be a drama queen.”

“I can’t always lean on you,” Sirius argues, but he’s gentle about it. “But if it gets bad... I’ll try.”

Harry takes what he can get and fills in the spaces with observation of Sirius’ habits, tracking the worst of his moods. But there’s nothing to be done during the time Harry spends at work. He won’t give up one duty for another; Sirius wouldn’t appreciate it and wizarding Britain might have a few choice words to say.


	3. Chapter 3

St. Mungo’s empties day by day. The trials cut the number of residents in half, veritaserum and linguistics experts making sure that their crimes were heinous enough for them to actually deserve the death penalty or an Azkaban sentence. The rest wouldn’t have been treated as harshly by modern day laws; a few had even been found to be researchers who had accidentally fallen into the Veil. Sirius begins training in Hogsmeade instead of St. Mungo’s, where Geoffrey has used his ministry grant to set up a small swordsmanship school. Sirius doesn’t take Harry’s offer to help him get back into the Auror program, but he agrees to turn the role he’d already taken of acclimatizing the people from the Veil to the modern day into something more legitimate, with a paycheck and a budget and an assistant. Sirius announces himself as ambassador to the past and rolls with it, finding satisfaction in the job.

It’s not without its dangers or failures. The young girl they’d recovered from the Veil shows up in no records of missing children or historical death sentences, nor has she spoken a word even months after her arrival. Harry momentarily considers a spot of legilimency and then sternly tells himself he’s not going down that path. When the girl runs away from the foster couple who’d taken her in, Sirius leads the search party. Harry helps during the evening and night of the escape and returns to work the next morning exhausted. A part of him worries about the kid, but mostly he just thinks about Sirius.

He often thinks about Sirius.

Harry sighs. His scar may not hurt, but his head does.

“Are you actually sighing over someone?” Belinda asks, raising an eyebrow. “Is that what your sudden desire to work semi-normal hours is all about?”

“I’m sighing over how much work I have left to do today,” Harry says. It’s a dirty lie and both of them know it, but he’s not admitting to anything.

Sirius had been a man on a mission yesterday, driven and serious, and while Harry was concerned about the missing kid, he couldn’t help but appreciate Sirius in all his passion. On the flip side, he’s worried that the longer it takes to find her— _if_ they find her, which Harry refuses to think about at this stage—the more Sirius will take the situation to heart. Sirius is better than he used to be, but Harry knows just how hard he sometimes finds the present day. He’d spent a long time at Remus’ grave after catching up with Teddy last week.

Harry has an urge to wrap Sirius in layers of protective magic and never let him out of his sight. He entertains the thought for longer than he should, letting the fantasy end with Sirius and him escaping off into the bedroom together. There’s no chance of Sirius actually allowing any of it to happen, but it’s a nice enough daydream.

Sleep deprivation and lack of attention have Harry staying at the office later than he has in a while. One of his assistants gets relegated to takeout duty and the sun sets in his artificial window. Harry’s knackered by the time he takes the floo home. He takes heart in the fact that the lights are on in his home, which means Sirius has been back at least once to get something to eat and maybe some rest. There’s no sign of Sirius on the first floor. On the second floor, Harry finds himself standing in the doorway of second guest bedroom. It’s Draco’s usual room when he stays over, done up in tasteful greens and browns after he’d taken offense at Harry’s decorating style. Now, there’s just Sirius balancing the missing kid in his arms while he tries to move the blankets without waking her. Harry wordlessly levitates the covers and throws in a dusting charm for good measure. Sirius tucks her under the covers, smoothing down her messy hair before he closes the door behind himself.

Harry gestures him into his bedroom, where there’s a privacy ward that activates by default. “I’m glad you found her.”

“She was hiding in the hollow of a tree a few miles away from her foster family’s home,” Sirius says once the door is closed. “She was terrified, dirty, and tried to attack me with a stick before she realized who I was. I brought her home to calm her down privately instead of dragging her back immediately.”

“She cried herself out and fell asleep?” Harry gathers. There’s a warmth in his chest at the way Sirius refers to Harry’s house as home.

“More like shivered next to the fire under a pile of blankets while I worked the flames into a fairy tale the way Dorea used to do for James’ young cousins. It got a better reaction than asking why she’d left. She shook her head at everything from them being mean to her to them ignoring her, but nodded to them being pushy.”

“Did you explain that they might be less pushy if she meets them halfway?” Harry asks, collapsing onto his bed and patting the space next to him. He’s not dealing with any of this from an upright position.

“For some reason, it didn’t seem to help.” Sirius pauses, but takes the other side of the bed, lying down on his side next to Harry. “You look like shit. Long day?”

“Long night, long day.” Harry makes a solid effort to not fall asleep while he and Sirius are actually in the same bed. There’s nothing to take advantage of, but still.

“I shouldn’t have dragged you out for the search,” Sirius says, sounding guilty. “I was too worried to realize you wouldn’t be able to just sleep in the next day to make up for the loss of sleep.”

“I took a catnap during lunch,” Harry assures him. It was ten minutes long and more like him passing out and waking up bleary and with a giant headache, but same difference. “I’m glad she’s alright. Is she going to fight going back to her placement?”

“I don’t know,” Sirius says. “I promised her that I’d talk to them.” He runs a hand over his face, looking almost as tired as Harry does. “They’ll only tell me that she needs to be pushed in order to heal, which I _know_. She can’t stay a silent wild child when she can read, most likely write, and understand most of what’s going on around her. I just don’t know what the balance is between pushing enough to help and pushing her away.”

“Incentives, maybe. What does she even like?” Harry asks, managing not to add that she doesn’t seem to like anything at all.

Sirius’ answer is instant. “Swordsmanship—”

“Yeah, I can see her as the type to want to hit people with swords.”

“—it’s good stress relief. Baked goods, fairy tale books, the neighbor’s crup puppies, having her own room, St. Mungo’s gave me a list of her food preferences.”

“You’re good at your job,” Harry says with a tired smile.

“If I were better, I’d have more concrete in formation. There hasn’t been any progress finding who she is, through records or the information we’ve put out. It’s likely that her records were lost during the war. Hermione offered the possibility of her entering the veil even after I did; there aren’t any records of Voldemort experimenting with the Veil, but that doesn’t mean it didn’t happen.”

“For her sake, I hope that’s not what it was,” Harry says tensely. Voldemort’s hires for the Unspeakable department had been Kissed under Kingsley’s administration. Harry hadn’t gotten past the first page of the few records they’d actually left without feeling sick. The whole mess is classified under magical oath. If Hermione allowed Sirius some details, then there’s a non-zero chance that the Veil had been activated during his reign. He reaches for Sirius’ hand, threads their fingers together. The touch chases some of the somberness from Sirius’ expression. “You’ll figure it out. If she trusts you enough to fall asleep here, then she’s at least developing connections to people, even if she’s not comfortable with her foster parents yet.” Just to make sure, he asks, “You warded the doors, right?”

“’Course I did. I’m not making my life harder. Elara can deal with staying inside until I wake up.”

“Elara?”

“She hasn’t given me a name and seems to dislike that one the least of all the ones I’ve tried,” Sirius says with a too-casual shrug.

Sirius doesn’t say anything else for a long while, his thumb unconsciously rubbing circles onto the sensitive skin of Harry’s inner wrist. Harry isn’t awake enough to appreciate it. It’s a crying shame, but he’s not even bothering to keep his eyes open by this point. Eventually, Sirius squeezes Harry’s hand, then gets up from the bed, his hand slowly sliding out of Harry’s. Harry is too tired to think of a way to get him to stay, but he still makes a noise somewhere in his throat.

Sirius speaks quietly when he says, “Are you going to sleep just like that?”

Harry makes an annoyed sort of noise and reaches for his wand, which appears as though it had always been a centimeter away and not deep in one of his pockets. He doesn’t raise it, just rotates it toward himself and vanishes all his clothes except his boxers. The Harry of tomorrow morning can figure out where it all got vanished to since the Harry of right now has only sleep on his mind.

“I— right, good call, you look comfortable. I’ll just go now. To check on Elara.” Footsteps, the creak of a door, darkness filling the room. “Sleep well, Harry.”

“G’night,” Harry mumbles in response.

The door softly closes.

 

*

 

It’s still dark outside when Harry stumbles downstairs the next morning. Sleep is a precious commodity in his life, though he doesn’t mind giving some up for Sirius. With a clear head, he reviews their conversation as he makes breakfast. The less rational part of his mind crows over the warmth of Sirius’ hand in his own, but Harry tells himself to stop being an eleven year old. Hand-holding, really.

The stairs creak lightly as someone makes their way downstairs. The pace is too light and slowl for it to be Sirius. When Harry glances back, he finds the kid lingering around the breakfast nook.

“Scrambled or over-easy?” Harry asks.

Elara holds up two fingers, then hops onto one of the chairs at the counter. She has to do it on her tip-toes, the chair rocking dangerously while Harry releases his hold on the spatula in case he needs to break her fall. The chair holds. Elara glares at it as per her usual attitude toward life. It’s cute in a weird way. Harry finds his wand already in his hand as he goes to cast a charm he does often when he babysits his godkids or other assorted Weasley children. He’s not as good at it as Ron, but he can still find his way around forming the eggs into pictures.

Harry leaves Sirius’ portion in the pan under a food stasis charm and lets Elara choose between a snake with a long forked tongue and a very badly mangled lion. Predictably, she goes for the snake.

“Scorpius demands perfection,” Harry says with a rueful shake of his head at the difference between his animal-making skills, then explains who Scorpius is. As he does, the toaster spits out two pieces of bread and levitates them onto their plates. “But I get the feeling you prefer snakes over lions anyway.”

Elara gives him a wary look, then nods. She starts eating from the snake’s tail up.

“Me too, sometimes.” Harry’s lips twitch up into a secretive smile. “I’d never survive in the den of snakes that is the ministry without it. You’d get on with Scorp like a house on fire.”

He gets a shrug in reply.

Harry studies her as she eats.

She’s dark-haired. Her hair falls to her shoulders with waves that are nearly curls, messy and wild and in dire need of a brush. She’s a little thin and her expression always seems too serious for her age. Scorpius certainly wouldn’t wear a similar face. Her eyes are a clear, very pale blue that Harry finds oddly familiar. It’s not the blue of Luna’s eyes or Ron’s, or the gray of Draco’s that looks blue in some lights. Harry feels as though he should remember those eyes, that they should’ve been locked in his memory, but the thought slips away. He’s looked into the eyes of thousands of people. It could’ve been anyone who had similar eyes; similar eyes aren’t a clear-cut sign of relation, anyway.

Maybe it’s only that there’s something there in her that speaks to him, some kind of kinship felt between two people who have lost themselves once already.

He isn’t seeing her as Sirius sees her. Sirius is more attached, more protective, though Harry could see himself becoming protective with a little more time. She’s young and so vulnerable despite her moodiness, alone in the world and not ready to accept any help freely given.

“Were your parents already dead when you went into the Veil?” Harry asks.

Elara doesn’t look up from her food for a long moment. When she does, her jaw is tight and her eyes bright. She nods.

“I’m sorry,” Harry says.

And there’s that glare again. She shakes her head at him forcefully, her dark hair flopping from side to side in a way that reminds Harry of Sirius. He’s really got to tone down his pining. Elara pushes her half-eaten plate to the side. Her hands are small enough that Harry barely notices the tremor in them. Which, hell. Harry gets up from his seat and walks the few steps between them. He crouches down next to her chair so as not to overwhelm her. Elara won’t look at him, but that’s alright.

“I am. One orphan to another, I’m sorry. Voldemort took my parents from me before I was old enough to remember them. I was sent to live with my Aunt Petunia and Uncle Vernon, who weren’t happy to raise me. Maybe you had something a little similar.” At this point, Elara finally raises her head, something tentative in her expression. She doesn’t give any other indication of whether Harry is off-base, but Harry continues anyway. “I missed them. I still do sometimes and I’m a fair bit older than you. There’s no way to get your parents back if they’re really gone. But that doesn’t mean that no one is going to love you or look out for you. Your foster parents would love to be your parents in truth. And look at Sirius, he spent all day and night looking for you. He was worried about you, you know?”

Obviously, says Elara’s expression, though she doesn’t seem to know what to do with it.

“Yeah, he’s not the type to hide his feelings when it comes to people he cares about. That includes you, kid.”

Elara shrugs. Her shoulders are small. She looks young when she’s not scowling at the world.

“I think you might care about him at least a little in return, so be good for him, alright?” Harry says, feeling like he should say something at least. He considers adding a request to not run off again, but she seems like the type to do the exact opposite of what adults tell her to do. “There’s better strategies to change your situation than running away.”

Elara dips her chin the slightest bit.

Harry wakes Sirius before he leaves, letting him know that their charge is at loose ends downstairs. Sirius is handsome even half-asleep, a pillow line on his cheek and hooded eyes. Harry gets out of there before his ogling becomes too noticeable.

At the office, Harry has an intern look up the meaning behind the name. Elara, one of the moons of Jupiter. It’s not a constellation, but it’s close enough that after receiving the information, Harry locks his office door, turns down the artificial light, and spends half an hour in thought in the middle of a busy workday.

Harry’s pretty sure that Belinda is under orders to snitch whenever Harry gets under a certain level of normal, so he’s not surprised when Ron and Hermione show up in his office for lunch. Ron starts up a conversation about quidditch while Hermione closes and locks the door. Harry would be annoyed if two decades of friendship hadn’t eaten away at most of the personal boundaries between him and his friends.

Ron takes a seat on Harry’s desk, while Hermione sits primly in one of the visitor’s chairs. As the quidditch conversation runs out of steam, they wait for Harry to give up his secrets.

“I’m an idiot,” Harry says, kicking his feet onto his desk and slumping down in his chair. Frankly, he’s surprised he can still reach new heights of idiocy. Live more, learn more, but hell, he should’ve learned enough by now to not let his heart get the best of him.

Hermione sighs at him, hopelessly fond and exasperated in equal measure. Ron’s right there with her. Harry loves the two of them to death and beyond it.

“I told you it was a trap,” Ron says. “It just looks like it was your sanity, not your politics.”

Harry doesn’t have it in him to disagree.

He finds himself showing up at the joke shop after hours. He’s asked for a few favors from George over the years, things for which he’d needed George’s creative mind and lack of scruples about the law. This time, it’s the same yet different.

“One overly paranoid protective object coming right up,” George tells him as he hands over the finished product. “Top of the line protective warding and minor spell deflection for the person wearing it, plus an unregistered, multi-use portkey. All he needs to do is say whatever phrase the two of you agree on and he’ll be portkeyed to your side, going through just about any ward that would otherwise stop someone. I don’t have to tell you that this can be used against you, right? I’ve keyed it to yours and Sirius’ magical signatures and put as many protections on it as I could, but if someone gets it off of him and manages to crack it, there’s a chance you’ll have an unpleasant surprise visitor able to tear through most wards to reach you.”

“I understand,” Harry says, taking the ring. The portkey part works by coating the user in Harry’s magic and acts more like a summoning charm than a true portkey. Harry’s magic is already pre-disposed to return to Harry; Sirius will be swept along with it. Only Sirius would be able to take it off; if anyone else tries, the portkey will activate and bring Sirius to him. It’s a dangerous innovation, but George tells him with a stupefied shake of his head that it wouldn’t work for the general population. There aren’t many people with Harry’s level of magical power. Not to mention the willingness to give their blood in the creation of the portkey, which is another aspect he doesn’t plan to reveal to anyone. “Thanks, George.”

“Yeah, yeah. Good luck with the proposal.”

“I’m rescinding my thanks,” Harry replies with a roll of his eyes. The ring is warm in his hands, well-made and attractive without being flashy. “It’s not like that.”

“I’m not joking. You’re protective of family, always have been, but not to this level.”

“He’s my _godfather_ ,” Harry says in case George hasn’t noticed.

“You’re not having godson-ly thoughts, mate.”

Maybe that’s true, but this is about protection and making sure Sirius can reach him if he ever feels the call of the Veil, not Harry’s ill-advised attraction. Certainly protection is godson-ly. The portkey is a ring because it needs to be close to the skin and Sirius doesn’t wear an earring anymore. A necklace would’ve worked, but Harry’s never seen him wear one. And anyway, a ring is a secure, solid choice.

He presents the ring to Sirius with no fanfare.

Because it’s not an engagement.

“I have a lot of enemies,” Harry tells him. “No one on the level of Voldemort, but they’re still dangerous. Since you won’t accept an auror detail, take this instead.” He explains the protections built into the ring. As he speaks, he wonders if maybe it is too much, but he’s already started. There’s no way out but through. “You can put it on a chain if you’d rather wear it that way. Or not wear it at all. Your call. Always.”

Sirius takes it from him with an odd expression, though there’s a slight quirk to his lips. “Shouldn’t you be on your knee?”

Harry groans at him. “Sirius.”

“I hope you don’t expect me to take care of all the wedding planning,” Sirius continues, but he slips the ring onto his finger. It looks good there, silver and solid against his sun-tanned skin.

“There are no weddings to be had,” Harry replies.

“Pity.”

It’s a joke on Sirius’ part, but Harry agrees. It really is a pity.

(He’s an idiot, that’s a given, but it’s alright. Harry doesn’t regret it. He can’t even bring himself to try. Sirius appeared in his life like an avalanche, sweeping through everything Harry thought he’d ever felt and turning it upside down. Harry loves his friends and his family, but Sirius is both at once, and more besides.)

Harry touches the ring occasionally when they sit together or Sirius hands something to him, just making sure the magic within the pendant is strong. He thinks Sirius doesn’t realize he does it until he catches a glimpse of Sirius looking at him with a warm indulgence just before Sirius looks away. Harry lets his hand trail down from the ring down Sirius’ long fingers, then lets go. “Lunch?”

“Maybe in a little while,” Sirius says.

There’s something playing on the telly, but Harry hasn’t been paying attention to anything except the way their hands had just barely been close enough to touch, sitting on the sofa as they both were. The global wizarding world is still getting accustomed to adapting television for their own purposes. For some reason, someone out there had decided to focus on introducing magicals to wizarding adaptations of muggle soap operas. Sirius finds the whole thing hilarious.

But he’s not laughing now, just occasionally glancing at Harry with a considering expression. After a few minutes, Harry gets wrapped up in the plot. The minister of magic, who looks just enough unlike Harry that there’s plausible deniability and has a scar on his hand instead of his forehead, is apparently madly in love with the mediwitch who saved his life during an assassination attempt. Or, hm, no, Minister Snotter seems to be flirting with the repentant assassin going undercover as his ex’s new friend. Perhaps the mediwitch romance just isn’t meant to be. Harry’s so caught up in his incredulity that he almost doesn’t notice the way Sirius finds his hand again, tangling their fingers together as they share a quiet moment.

Sirius brings it up that day after lunch, leaning against the door frame and watching Harry in the kitchen. His hair is growing long again, framing his face in waves of dark locks. There’s a storm brewing in those gray eyes, and Harry’s heart skips a beat. Stuffing a brown paper bag over Sirius’ head would really help with Harry’s decision-making process. “I’ve been thinking.”

Harry sets his plate and utensils in the sink, where a cleaning charm activates with a whoosh of water and soap. He takes Sirius’ dishes off his godfather’s hands, too. “Sounds dangerous.”

“What kind of Gryffindor would I be if I didn’t run head first into danger?” It seems he takes his own words to heart, because Sirius decides to just say what must’ve been on his mind all day. All week maybe. It could even be months. “I want to adopt Elara. She still hasn’t been able to bond with her foster family and she trusts me more than she trusts anyone else. She’s a good kid, smart, a little vicious. Deserves to have someone watching out for her who understands something of what she’s been through. I know I’m not anyone’s first choice for a parent, but she’s not a newborn, and I don’t think I’m a worse choice than those two idiots who keep trying to push her too far.”

Harry considers reassuring Sirius, but he can’t honestly say that Sirius would be his first choice of parent. For himself, at least. Harry’s feelings are already on the wrong side of familial without adding pseudo-incest into the mix. By now, Harry’s had enough time to get used to the idea of Elara that Sirius’ words don’t surprise him. Sirius has talked about and visited Elara more often since returning her to her foster home. He’s taken her on excursions that Sirius claims is to introduce her to the modern day world, but Harry doubts that’s all it is. He’s given her a name that wouldn’t be out of place on the Black family tapestry.

“Are you sure?” Harry still asks. “A kid is a lot of responsibility. Even I know that, and my experience with kids is mostly babysitting and making sure my godkids don’t take over the world or something.” Teddy has successfully sneaked into Harry’s office under the guise of Belinda, after which Harry had Ron do an overhaul of his security because a then-thirteen year old kid shouldn’t have been able to do that. Rose is as smart as her mum and more ambitious than both her parents combined, even at her young age. Scorpius is a tornado in human form. Ginny’s Matteus is too small to get into too much trouble, but his scream can all but raise the dead. “Kids are hard even when you raise them from birth, but Elara needs more than just love and protection.”

“I know,” Sirius offers. “I’ll have help—I’ve discussed it at length with St. Mungo’s and her social worker, as well as with her current foster parents. I have Draco and Andromeda volunteering as babysitters, and I haven’t spoken about it to Molly yet, but I can’t see her turning down another kid to mother occasionally.”

“You’ll have me, too,” Harry says.

A pleased look makes its way onto Sirius’ face. “You don’t have to. I know you’re busy.”

As though Harry could every deny him anything, Harry thinks, almost amused. But it’s not entirely out of love for Sirius or just plain pity for the kid’s circumstances. Harry likes her, the little fireball that she is. It won’t be a hardship to let her into his home, into his heart. “During the day, yes, but if it’s an emergency, she can’t get into too much trouble in my office while I do some work at my desk. And there’s always evenings and weekends. You don’t have to do this without me.”

“I wouldn’t want to,” Sirius admits. “Thanks, Harry.”

Harry hugs him, because otherwise he might do something else the longer Sirius looks at him with so much warmth in his eyes. Family, Harry tells himself firmly, and it’s everything he’s ever wanted, just one step to the left.

The paperwork goes through more quickly than it should, but Harry doesn’t expect any differently, not with Harry’s signature on the documents. For now, he and Sirius are Elara’s foster placement. If after a period of six months it works out and Elara agrees, it could become something more permanent. There is no small amount of celebration and ribbing from his friends, who are much too amused with Harry’s circumstances.

Even Draco tracks him down at the ministry, sidling up to Harry in the hallway and saying, “I can’t believe you eloped and didn’t invite me.”

“Not you, too.”

“Of course me too. And now you have a kid on the way. My, what a world.”

Draco arranges a play date for Elara and Scorpius despite Harry’s certainty that the two of them will happily enable each other’s chaos. Even Teddy is excited, arriving in Harry’s office with a flurry of movement and a desire to meet his new sister once things are more settled. He’s a good kid, Harry can’t help but think, knowing Remus would be proud of the man Teddy is growing into. A part of him also wonders what Remus would think of Harry’s less than platonic feelings, but that just leads him down a rabbit hole of wondering if his parents would’ve approved. Probably not, but Harry’s a grown man, and a man in love. If his family is watching him from somewhere above, they’ll just have to flip the channel. Harry can’t tell if it’s wishful thinking or if Sirius sometimes looks at him with more than just family and friendship in mind.

As Elara sweeps through their lives, it’s moot point. For a while, Harry’s too busy to even pine as he juggles the ministry and the slowly-melting block of ice around his kid’s heart. Sirius spends more time with her, his job having more flexible hours and the ability to take Elara to work with him sometimes. The residents from the Veil are always happy to see her. Still, Harry does what he can.

He knows full well what it’s like to grow up without parents. He won’t be an absent father to a kid that chips away at his heart and makes a place there. Elara receives a set of earrings that match Sirius’ ring nearly charm for charm.

It’s a year later, during a quiet evening in while Elara’s off on a Weasley kid slumber party over at Molly and Arthur’s, that Sirius looks to Harry and says, “I can sometimes be oblivious, but I know what it looks like when someone wants me.”

Harry doesn’t feign obliviousness either. Not with the way he’d spent all evening discreetly checking out the cut of Sirius’ new robes. Not discreetly enough, apparently. But there’s a small smile tugging at Sirius’ lips, and Harry swallows, wondering if Sirius’ good humor is because he returns the attraction or just doesn’t mind.

“I do want you,” Harry agrees. The words are easy to say. They’re a fact of life. The Earth circles the sun, Elara despises carrots, and Harry loves this man standing in front of him. He considers couching it in pretty words, telling Sirius that it doesn’t have to be anything if Sirius doesn’t want it to be, but by now, Sirius knows that there’s very little Harry would say no to when it’s Sirius asking. If Sirius asks for it to be forgotten, then Harry will work twice as hard to keep a handle on his thoughts. “When did you notice?”

“Two days in, but I was off my game after so long away,” Sirius tells him. “I thought it would be kinder to not say anything.”

“Ah,” Harry murmurs. It hurts like a Cruciatus to the heart, but Harry isn’t surprised. A few responses come to mind, but he discards them. Nothing seems quite right. There are words out there that should be able to fix this, but Harry can’t seem to come up with them.

“I thought it was a passing attraction,” Sirius explains, taking a step closer. They’re of a height, but Sirius has filled out since coming back, broader in the shoulders and a confidence to his steps that went dormant during his time in Azkaban. “But it’s not.”

“No,” Harry agrees. “I love you. I have for a very long time.” Longer than he wants to admit if it will scare Sirius away.

“I know,” Sirius replies, and he carefully brushes a hand along Harry’s cheek. “I don’t think there was anything I could’ve done but fall in love with you in return. You’re too easy to love; you should try to fix that sometime.”

Harry has a half-dozen arguments to that—who does Sirius think he’s kidding, it’s Harry who’s helpless against Sirius’ everything—but words are the last thing on his mind as he closes the space between them. Harry loses himself in the feeling of Sirius’ lips and embrace, content with the fact that Sirius will always guide him home.

**Author's Note:**

> (Later, Sirius goes to George for a similar ring and gives it to Harry with the words, “I know I never gave you a proper answer, but our engagement has lasted long enough.”)
> 
> Thanks for reading! 
> 
> I didn't go into detail about Elara's circumstances because I wanted this story to be more about Harry and Sirius' relationship, but if you're curious, the info can be found [here](https://wynnefic.tumblr.com/post/175763892245/crack-au-where-the-kid-in-the-siriusharry-fic-is). If I ever write a sequel, I'd go into it in more detail, but for now this is it for this AU.


End file.
